CHAPTER II
SCHILLER'S IDEAS WON THE TYPE PROBLEM
1, Letters on the Esthetic Education of Man
(a) The superior and the inferior functions
So far as my somewhat limited range extends, Friedrich
Schiller seems to have been the first to have made any con-
siderable attempt at a conscious discrimination of typical
attitudes, and to have developed a fairly complete pre-
sentation of their singularities. This important endeavour
to represent the two mechanisms in question, and at the
same time to discover a possibility of their reconciliation,
is to be found in his treatise first published in 1795 : Uber
du asthetiscke Ermhung des Menschen \ The paper con-
sists of a number of letters which Schiller addressed to
the Duke of Holstehv-Augustenburg,
Schiller's essay, by the depth of its thought, the psycho-
logical penetration of its material, and its wide vision of
the possibility of a psychological solution of the conflict,
prompts me to a somewhat extensive presentation and
appreciation of his ideas, for never yet has it fallen to their
lot to be treated in such a connection.
The merit due to Schiller from our psychological view-
point, as will become clear in our further discussion, is by
no means inconsiderable ; for he gives us developed points-
of-view which we, as psychologists, are just beginning to
appreciate. My responsibility will, of course, not be light,
Ausgabe, 1826, Bd, rviii, The English translation
is lu many ways unsatisfactory and even incorrect : the references
therefore are to the German edition,
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